


The Braithwait Chronicles

by Azamandus



Category: Original Work
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-01-07
Updated: 2021-01-07
Packaged: 2021-03-18 09:42:33
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 21,745
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28616007
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Azamandus/pseuds/Azamandus





	The Braithwait Chronicles

My name is Arthur Braithwait, I’m listed in the book under exterminators, but don’t call me to come get rid of your roaches or those rats infesting your basement. Unless they are the giant flesh eating kind of bugs, or you guessed it, rats of unusual size. Most of the calls I get are from cranks, who want to pull my chain over being listed as a monster exterminator in the phone book. I have come to regard these kinds of people as nut cases, if they only knew that what goes bump in the night is sometimes very real, they would likely think twice about making that crank call.

I first ran into my current business partner Elizebeth Stroud, while working a case in Southeast Calgary. The old apartment building had become infested with a ghoul problem, one of the residents of the building had gotten scared when pets in the building had started disappearing. Generally speaking people don’t understand what they are getting themselves into when they call me, most think what I do is easy, show up spray whatever it is and the problem goes away.

If it were only that easy, my family have been a part of the Hunters Society since the dark ages. Men and women who have dedicated their entire lives, to hunting down those things that go bump in the night. My family chronicle is a book full of monster hunting lore and lessons in tracking down specific things, a tell all book detailing just how to go about hunting down things from Wendigo to Death walkers. It is not for the faint of heart to open those pages, frankly it would scare the piss out of most average humans.  
Elizabeth is a witch, ok the first thing usually comes to mind for most people is oh dear god a witch, then they start laughing. If they only knew the truth behind what she does, I think most peoples blood would run cold. Elizabeth had been called by another resident of the same building to deal with the exact same problem I’d been hired to deal with. Now generally speaking I don’t have call to treat witches any differently then I would anyone else, there are exceptions to this of course, witches come in all kinds.

Some like the Baba yaga, I would definitely want to exterminate on sight. Elizabeth confronted me as I was heading for the buildings basement and asked me what I thought I was doing stepping on her business, I told her I’d been hired to get rid of a ghoul problem, she started laughing until I pulled out my medallion, the hunters society is well known in the super natural circles, we have been hunting down monsters for a very long time, and we know our jobs. “So didn’t know the society had sent anyone to come play pest control agent out here, when did you blow into town?”

Her question made me immediately take notice, usually women as beautiful as she is ignore me and just go on about their business. I swallowed in a dry mouth, I get a little nervous around cute gals. My reply made her giggle when I told her.”Moved in three months ago, got assigned here when the society got wind of a sasquatch terrorizing bird watchers, turned out to be just a curious youngster that had gotten lost, and ended up to close to the city.”

After she’d finished having a good giggle, she introduced herself as a third tier acolyte of the Silver coven. I’d heard of the coven, they were known to deal with monsters.The coven were well known in Europe, and the eastern part of the north american continent, but I hadn’t heard of them being this far west.”What brings you this far west? Thought you folks worked the eastern provinces.” My question made her frown. “We go where were led, do you have a name sir?” I’d been debating telling her my name, I didn’t know how safe it would be revealing something as personal as my name, but she grinned at me, and her eyes twinkled. So being a gentlemen, I finally introduced myself. “Arthur Braithwait, monster hunter of the Society.” 

She nodded and smiled. I got the impression she was actually amused by my behavior, I let it go and we both headed for the basement, now a weird thing about ghouls, they can hide in the most unlikely of places, there turned out to be three of them, living in a cramped storage unit. When I spotted the spore around the tight space leading into the dark storage unit, I got Elizabeth's attention and pointed it out. Reaching into my trench coat, I extracted a couple of bottles of holy water and I listened to her incanting a spell, as the words dropped from her lips a rather ugly little blue imp appeared. Witches of the Silver coven rely on elemental spirits to help power their spells, she likely had a variety of small elemental critters to do her bidding. I waited till she was prepared and kicked in the door to the storage unit. The first one dropped from the ceiling, and tried to make my face into hamburger. I punched it, knocking it down. 

“Enflamous Incinerata!” Her spell ignited the ghoul with blue white flames, it screeched and began to thrash around on the floor, as it burned to a crisp. The second one sprang from a behind a large crate, at her back, I lined up and smashed it in the face with the first bottle of holy water, the thing let out a shriek like a scalded cat and began tearing at its own rubbery flesh as it melted into a pile of disgusting smelling ooze. The first thing you learn in this business, is to never go after monsters on a full stomach, unless the stench of burning flesh and boiling innards makes you feel all warm and cozy that is. The last one seeing it’s mates getting their asses handed to them decided to retreat, it tore it’s way into the heating duct and scampered through there like a rabbit running from the hounds.

The words that came out of Elizabeth’s mouth could have peeled the wallpaper, the woman can curse a blue streak when she gets aggravated.”Well now you’ve gone and let it escape!” The woman glared at me, like it was my fault the damned thing had bolted, frankly I’d have run screaming myself, if I witnessed someone get burned alive and someone else get turned into rotting ooze on the floor. “Right and you didn’t happen to see it getting ready to spring for the duct?” My verbal barb hit home, she screwed up her lip and grabbed my hand, that was the first time a woman like her had ever decided to take my hand. I’ve been told I have clammy hands, I guess it comes from the amount of sweating I do in my line of work. Though Elizabeth didn’t seem to mind at all. The imp following her glowered then began to sniff at me. I regarded it with a look of disdain and he flipped me the bird. I learned that imps are about the most nasty little elemental bastards in the elemental planes, and their farts stink like sulfur. Which I learned about just after he flipped me off.

The stench lingered when he let go, and I covered my mouth and nose with a handkerchief from my coat pocket.”Nice friend you have, does it do any tricks?” Elizabeth regarded me with a quick look and sighed. “He usually behaves himself, but he has an issue when he sees me with a man, kind of acts over protective, since his first master was a warlock who mistreated him.” I nodded and we headed for the stairs leading up out of the basement. I reached for my medallion and held it in my right hand, Elizabeth noted what I was doing in an offhanded way, then raised her eyebrows when I invoked the tracking function of the medallion.

My medallion was created for the Hunter Society by the Hermetic order, they are wizards, and druids living in modern day England, parts of Spain and France, though they have members all over the world, my local contact was Oliver Randall. A man I regarded as the most putrid individual I’d ever had the displeasure to run into, but he’d been the one the Society told me to contact for certain items I would need to do my job. Frankly the man was a disgusting pervert who spent his days watching cheap porn, and whiling away the hours communing with spirits. I needed his help to replace enchantments on my gear, and to recharge the medallion when it’s crystal was depleted.

“That looks like Hermetic work, that sort of thing doesn’t come cheap, your society have that kind of money to afford powerful tracking gear like that?” I simply nodded, and looked down at her hand still holding mine tightly, I started to wonder then if she sort of had a thing for me, or was just possessive. I smiled and squeezed her hand, that brought her eyes up to look at my face, she swallowed and I got the distinct impression Ms Stroud had forgotten she’d grabbed my hand back there. “Sorry I got a bit excited, normally I work alone, people tend to see me hurling spells and run, you aren’t afraid of witches are you Mr Braithwait?” She let my hand go, and smiled.

Elizabeth Stroud is cute, platinum blond curly hair, deep blue piercing eyes, and a figure that turns heads when she walks down the street. I thought about asking her her age then discarded that idea, witches aren’t like you and me, they don’t age rapidly, due to the fact they use so much eldritch energy in their day to day lives, and my mom had always said never to ask a lady her age, it wasn’t polite. I think she might have been reading my mind, because the next words out of her mouth made me blush. “So admiring the package are we?” She must have caught my glance and come to the conclusion I was checking her out, well in all honesty I was, hey I might have to deal with super natural critters everyday but I am still a hot blooded guy, who likes a pretty face.

“Uh well to be honest not many women would have stuck around when a flesh eating ghoul jumped off the ceiling and tried to eat a guys face, kinda makes me wonder if a gal like that could be someone I might want to get to know better.” That stopped her dead in her tracks she regarded me with a sidelong stare.”Are you trying to hit on me Mr Braithwait?” I stood there coolly, and smiled.”What happens if I am?” A smirk came to her mouth. “Honestly it’s been sometime since a guy had the balls to ask me out even, let alone try to start a conversation with me, you really sure you want to get involved with a witch Mr Braithwait?” Her smile made me chuckle. Here was a woman, who studied the arcane arts and put herself in danger on a daily basis, looked like a million bucks and probably dated sometime in the last century. “Hey I’m not such a hot catch either, things that eat people and cause no end of trouble in the human world fear me, and so I have this problem, there are loads of things out there that would love to eat my face. It doesn’t go over well when the girl your with watching that scary movie gets to see real zombies come after you, kinda makes your love life turn cold real fast.” Her laugh was honest and real. 

“I do believe I like you Mr Braithwait, what say after we hunt this last ghoul down, we go get a cup of coffee and talk it over.”That had been five years ago, two years after we started dating Elizabeth moved in with me, we got a bigger office together and started really making a name for ourselves in the super natural circles. Our lives were going along fine and dandy till this morning when High priestess Velma Rupert showed up on our doorstep at the ungodly hour of 5AM. I had the feeling she’d been knocking for a good while when I finally rose to answer in my boxers and bathrobe, the skinny old lady made a nasty snort and pushed me out of the way, now usually I like to know exactly who it is breaking into my place at the ungodly hour of 5 in the morning but the first words out of her mouth were. “Acolyte Stroud bring your law breaking ass, out here this very instant!”

Elizabeth appeared rubbing sleep from her over tired eyes, we’d been on a case last night and it had gone to the wee hours of the morning, when we finally had caught the leprechaun that had been terrorizing a seniors home in Southwest Calgary. Someone had used a four leaf clover wish and the thing had been close enough to let it respond. When will people ever learn those kinds of things don’t grant wishes, they fool the unwary into believing in that crap to get access to whatever they want to take. In the leprechaun’s case he had stolen 5 human souls by the time we finally were able to catch and dispose of him properly.

“Oh high priestess what can I do for you on this bright day?” The old bat glared at her over her horn rimmed glasses and snorted.”You know damned well what I am here for and about, you shameless hussy!” Elizabeth looked shocked, then her face looked thoughtful for a second and I noticed her swallow. It struck me the old lady had been speaking of something coven related but was keeping her words mostly to herself.”Now then pack your bags we will be leaving this den of impurity right now!” I kind of took umbrage at den of impurity and told the old bat if she was going to talk that way to Elizabeth, then she could take her bony ass back where ever she crawled out of.

I’d never seen a high order witches face turn that color before, it was a sort of bright scarlet, maybe even blood red, and her face looked like a storm cloud had just swept over her. I braced for a real tongue lashing, and wasn’t surprised in the least.”You insolent puppy I should turn you into a toad, or maybe a neut, would you like to be a neut you insufferable little nuisance?!” I had been brought up with manners but when a dried up old hag pounds on your door at 5 in the AM and starts to bad mouth you and your girlfriend it sort of crosses the line.“Listen you dried up old wind bag, go ahead and threaten me, if you break the conventions and cast a transfiguring spell on me or try to, I’ll be forced to neutralize your skinny ass!” I pulled out my medallion which was already glowing.

The old bats eyes went to the medallion and she went very pale. I didn’t threaten humans usually, I didn’t need to but the law was plain, if I was threatened by her in a life threatening manner, by society law I could hunt her down like any other super natural monster. and the medallion glowing in my fist would turn most everything she could throw at me, while at the same time recording the attack to be sent to my society, thus proving her evil intentions and having her ass outlawed world wide.”I well this puts a rather different light on things, though you are breaking coven law, you know you are in the wrong Elizabeth, and you know the reason I am here now, his being a hunter and aware of the super natural doesn’t mean you are free to do whatever you like!”

I had to hand it to the old bag, she could be scared but she knew her responsibilities and was making it known Elizabeth was in the wrong.”So tell me something what’s she done, that’s broken your coven law?” Elizabeth's face went pale then. The old bat raised her eyebrows and her lip started to quiver.”You never even told him what you were doing did you!?” Elizabeth shook her head in the negative, I had a feeling the infraction she’d committed was pretty bad. “So since were airing the laundry about me and Elizabeth's relationship, care to tell me in plain words what’s wrong about us being in this relationship!?”

“I will indeed tell you since she failed to tell you herself, you see a witches powers come from purity of being, and purpose, when she committed sexual acts with you she seriously broke her connection to the elemental powers she had made contracts with, her powers will eventually fade to nothing unless drastic action is taken and that must be soon!” I glared at the old lady then my eyes went to Elizabeth her tears were more than I could possibly stand about then so this needed to be said. “Since it seems I have had a hand in her downfall, it only goes to show I need to be a part of the solution.” The old lady turned to me, her face fell. I had a feeling what I’d just said was more than I’d intended to say, but I’d be damned if Elizabeth was punished because she’d fallen in love with me.

“Do you think I won’t take you at your word Mr Braithwait, you realize if you go down this path you will be bound to us till you die do you not!?” I stared the old lady in the eye and nodded. Elizabeth sucked in a breath, and her hand reached out to take mine. I could see emotions swirling behind her eyes, ok so I was feeling pretty good I’d just stared a grizzly possible death in the face and made myself look pretty good in front of my gal, so yeah I know stupid comes before the fall. “I’ll do whatever it takes for Elizabeth to redeem herself.”

Those words made the old lady cackle, I’ll tell you right now when they say witches cackle they mean it literally. Whatever I’d said seemed to get the old bat motivated. “Well then since you are willing to devote your life to her, you had best get dressed, Mr Braithwait, we’ve a wedding to go to, oh Elizabeth, do be a good girl and tell him what he has gotten himself into. I shall be at Saint Christopher's church, speaking to the cardinal, don’t dawdle, I expect you both there in an hour.” With those words she raised her arms and teleported away, leaving the stench of sulfur in the air of my living room.

“Arthur you don’t have to do this, I could just leave.” I reached into the top drawer of my dresser and swallowed I’d been trying to work up the courage to ask her for the last month, sometimes a guy gets flustered. I reached in and pulled the little black box out.”Well this wasn’t how I wanted this to go, but I have been meaning to ask you for over a month now, just well.”

That was as far as I got, she dashed to me and threw her arms around me, the hug and kisses made me feel like a million bucks.”So is that a yes?” She nodded we got dressed, and made our way to Saint Christopher's church. I’d dealt with the church before for my supply of holy water, I knew the cardinal, we’d even played bingo once or twice at the community hall.

“Good morning Francis, sorry to wake you at this ungodly hour of the morning, but it seems I might have caused my girlfriend just a bit of unwanted bother.” He rolled his eyes at me, and chuckled.”Arthur if I didn’t know you better, I’d say you’d been a very bad boy, shall we fix that little problem in the eyes of the lord, before the good High priestess has a conniption fit?” I nodded and we proceeded into the church. Usually people come here with their families, and friends, they have huge weddings full of laughter and joy, ours was a total of five people, one of them being Velma Rupert, one being the churches secretary, me, Elizabeth and Francis. The whole thing was over quick, and we were officially married. Okay so marrying a witch, can I say honestly didn’t expect it to matter that much, but it did. Now that we were bound by holy contract, I noticed a certain glow around my new bride, she smiled at me after that kiss, and I could feel a tension in the air dissipate. Old Velma grumbled something and told Elizabeth that she would need to go to her covens chapter house to reconnect with her elemental contracts and she would be required to take on new responsibilities now that she was married.

I’d thought the old bag was a nasty task master, until she opened her purse and started to cry. She handed Elizabeth an envelop and I could see the tears. Then she teleported away, I thought she was just a nasty old hag but it turned out she’d been truly concerned for Elizabeth’s well being. The envelop contained two tickets for a sea cruise out of Victoria BC to Hawaii. Well I guess things hadn’t turned out the way I had wanted them to go, but on the up side I was now married to my business partner, and they say marriage is easy, yeah whoever started that lie should have to live my life. 

By the time we got home, a messenger pigeon was roosting on the railing in front of my door. Now usually the society sends me things by normal mail, this meant trouble they’d used a carrier pigeon, that meant this was urgent, and not meant for normal human eyes. Elizabeth opened the door to the apartment, while I grabbed the message and shooed the bird on it’s way. “Good news or bad?” Her question to me made me nervous about opening it. “I don’t know, guess I’ll find out.” I opened the tube and extracted the message. As of receipt of this message Arthur Braithwait is on official leave, you will be required to be back on the job in two weeks time and it was signed Hunt Mistress Judith Braithwait. It looked like I had been boxed and blindsided, for a message to arrive like this, my mother would have had to been informed of things ahead of time, I immediately called my mom.

I think she’d been sitting by the phone waiting for me to call to be honest. “Mom got your message, tell me how did you know I would need leave?” I heard a laugh on the other end and I knew I’d been set up, turned out the last time my mom had come for a visit she’d made sure to contact the coven. Mom and dad had made sure the family name would continue to be monster hunters into a new generation. Parents they sure know how to meddle in your life.

“So I am guessing you were the one who contacted the Coven?” She confirmed it had indeed been her, I was explaining things to Elizabeth as they unraveled over the phone conversation. Mom went on to explain that I would be receiving official notification in the normal mail, of my status change and new rank in the society, before now they hadn’t trusted me with apprentices, seemed that was about to change, I was going to be required to train a new apprentice hunter, at the time it really didn’t sink in, brother if I’d known then what I do now, maybe I would have declined.

We flew out of YYC the next morning, and made it to our cruise ship that would take us to Hawaii, where the Coven had booked a week long stay for us on the beach at Waikiki, Ok so my new bride sure turned heads that first day on the white sands. We were sipping Mai Tai’s under a beach umbrella when a local approached us, the guy seemed kind of weird to be completely honest but hey we were on vacation sometimes locals bother the tourists, that as it turned out wasn’t the case here. “Are you the Braithwaits?” Elizabeth giggled, she was still getting used to being Mrs Braithwait.

“Something we can do for you, I’m Arthur Braithwait.” His face told me what he had to say, was likely going to ruin my vacation.”I hate to ask, I know you’re on your honeymoon but our local hunter has been hospitalized, and we have a serious problem, someone disturbed one of the ancient tombs and now they have unleashed the tombs guardians.” I stared at the guy like he must be kidding me, but the look on his face told me otherwise.”All right, but I have none of my gear with me, if we are going to do this I’m going to need to get gear from your local hunters place.” The guy nodded and offered to drive us there, Akamu Kekoa lived in a small house just off the beach, the yard was neat and tidy, but the inside looked like a tsunami had rolled through it.

Every surface was covered in used pizza boxes,discarded take out containers or empty soda bottles. The place looked like a trash bomb had been set off sometime in the past, and never been dealt with since. Elizabeth made a disgusted sound and I was thinking the worst for finding the items I would need in this guys lab. The guy Haku opened the lab door and I did a double take, the place was spotless, Haku grinned and explained that he was the one who kept the lab and yard the way they were, since the hunter usually couldn’t be bothered to keep his place in an acceptable manner.

I found the things I thought I’d need to deal with guardian creatures, man no one had prepared me for dealing with that kind of thing, being guardians it made the job way harder then I’d thought it was going to be. We rolled up on the location the tourist hotel had a long line of people leaving, Elizabeth immediately told me the local spirits were very angry, she had felt it as soon as we rolled up on the grounds, the curse had been potent, the Kupua who had laid the curse down had definitely known what the hell they were doing. Elizabeth got out of the car and put a hand to her head, she said she could feel the spirits anger all the way out here in the parking lot, that didn’t bode well for what we might find on the property when we finally located the disturbed tomb.

Haku lead us into the hotel, and out the back entrance. I could feel eyes on me the entire time and I got the impression they were very angry eyes. We went down the nature trail behind the hotel and I spotted the first stone Tiki, I’d dealt with European gargoyles before but Tiki’s were different. Elizabeth's eyes began to glow and I heard her start to incant, I knew then we were in trouble I usually dealt with most of the physical critters, so when she started to cast a spell I knew we were in for a really different time. The crossbow armed with an enchanted bolt went to my shoulder, I snapped off a shot into it, and I could see all I’d done was piss it off.

It looked like an angry avalanche was headed our way fast, it gathered speed as it ran towards us, I fired again as quickly as I could reload, and it just seemed to make it madder. Suddenly Elizabeth extended her right hand and I heard her spirit laying spell leave her lips, the thing took two more steps and fell on its face. I breathed a sigh of relief as I watched it go down, I was going to need a heavier weapon, the crossbow wasn’t going to cut it. We withdrew to the car. “Haku my man, as you just witnessed, this crossbow isn’t going to do shit to these Tiki’s I need to get to a church and get some serious hardware.” He nodded and we were off to the Waikiki Beach Chaplaincy, I’d never seen an outside church before but the guy Haku introduced me to knew his business.

When I told the man what I wanted he looked at me like I was crazy.”You realize if I sell you that stuff I will be responsible, for what happens?” I nodded and explained the problem to him. His face grew whiter and whiter as I explained what I was trying to deal with he finally went to a room safe and opened it, issuing holy hand grenades to the average citizen would likely get this guy put so far under the prison they would literally pump sunshine into him. I promised to use the things responsibly, when you unleash that sort of destructive force, you better be careful. I ended up with six grenades, enough firepower to level a city block if I decided to, Elizabeth really didn’t like me using that kind of firepower, but it looked like in this kind of situation I was going to need it.

“You and your toys, so where to next?” The next stop was to a local enchanted gun smith, the crossbow was good but I had the feeling I needed something with better stopping power, back home I usually carried a 50 caliber Griffin the enchanted silver bullets were expensive but it felt good to see a werewolf barreling towards you all gnashing jaws and razor sharp claws drop like an axed tree when you shot it in the face, at 40 feet. Enchanted silver  
bullets or alchemical loads cost me loads but in my business equipment made the man, I had a maidens hair whip to, but since I got married that would be ineffective from now on I’d deal with that when I got home.

The gun smith didn’t have any Griffins in stock, I ended up with a dragon fire belcher, the rifle made me nervous sure I’d been trained how to use one but that had been when I was 15 years old, grandpa hadn’t been an easy teacher I did a quick breakdown of the weapon, just to refamiliarize myself with it and nodded the guy raised an eyebrow when he saw my hunter society card for the purchase, mom was going to be giving me a serious call when she got the bills from my vacation. I grabbed a half dozen hellfire loads, and a half dozen basilisk acid cartridges, I kept a running tab in my head, mom was going to have a bird and then some another 1,000 a piece for each round of ammo, I was cranking up the cost like a free spender hell it was my honeymoon might as well go out with a bang.

I gathered my purchases and we headed back to the hotel, the place seemed to be deserted except for the hotel staff, Haku spoke to the guy at the front desk, the guy sounded scared the last guests had fled, the oppressive feeling had closed in around the hotel. Elizabeth nodded confirming the spirits were on the move, that meant the Tiki’s would be coming soon, I noted the sun was going down, I didn’t like our odds if we had to deal with these things at night, they gave me the heebie-jeebies in the daylight if we had to face stone statues coming at us in the dark it was going to get dicey. We went up the nature trail armed to the teeth, the first two came at us out of the trees rolling along at full angry speed, Elizabeth laid the first one out and I leveled the second with a hellfire load, the burning shrieking stone monster, dissolved as the sticky burning liquid ate through it. I had to give Haku credit, the man wasn't afraid of the super natural. Though walking with us unarmed into a angry bunch of Tiki’s didn’t sound like the smartest thing to do, we finally located the tomb, I felt the eyes on me again, Elizabeth had a shudder run through her, the oppressive feeling of anger in the air was starting to get on my nerves. Then Haku ran past us into the cave screaming something in Hawaian, I didn’t understand the language so we took off in pursuit, when we caught up to him, we found his crushed body on the cave floor.

I looked down at the fast cooling corpse, and nearly lost my lunch, his head had been squished like a ripe melon, I couldn’t imagine the kind of force it would take to pulp a mans head like that, and frankly I didn’t feel like learning what it felt like first hand. Elizabeth nodded ahead of us, something large was looming over the opening we were heading towards. When we got to the entrance to the inner chamber Elizabeth crossed her arms over her chest and urged me to stay back till she determined if she could propitiate the Loa in front of us, it turned blazing red eyes on her and spat a reddish orange ball of rolling flame at her, we dove for cover, I guessed the spirit wasn’t in any mood to be peaceably dealt with, the fireball crashed our way burning and sizzling along the explosion rocked me throwing me about 30 feet down the path we had come up I immediately started rolling to extinguish the flames.

“Great I think you made it madder!” My comment made Elizabeth growl, when I hear that I’ve come to know my wife isn’t in the mood to be teased, the thing it looked like had really pissed her off, trying to play nice hadn’t worked. I could feel the burns on my back and arms from the flames, I’d need a hospital visit after we got done here, but right now tall,fat and gruesome was barreling this way with a head on fire with black flames. I stood up and reached into my kit bag I could hear Elizabeth incanting I know it takes a couple of seconds to prep a spell, I’d had just about enough of our island adventure and wasn’t in the mood to play games anymore, I pulled out a holy hand grenade and pulled the pin, then I did my best pitcher impression and let fly at big, tall and ugly.

The grenade hit him in the face right at the bridge of his stone nose, I heard the charge ignite and pulled my wife to the floor ruining her spell but I knew what was coming next, the explosion of bright golden light ripped through the place and tall,dark and hideous went into convulsions the explosion had nearly ripped off half of its face, as we watched the lower jaw on the left side fell to the floor of the cave with a plop, the whole head was a mass of black and gold flames burning and hissing across the things body, I couldn’t believe the thing had taken a holy hand grenade and survived, Elizabeth glared at me under beetled brows for ruining her spell then sighed.

I shrugged my shoulders and helped her up, the Loa was doing the burny dance but it turned those pain filled orbs on us and started coming on like a freight train on steroids. I started dragging my wife along as we hauled ass away from the very pissed off Loa. If it could take a holy hand grenade and live we were in serious trouble. All I could think of was the tune from that movie where the guy is running from the giant boulder rolling his way, I knew it was gathering speed. Suddenly Elizabeth just stopped, she pulled me to a halt and turned, usually her attitude is pretty relaxed unless shes mad, then all gods give you a place to hide because when my wife loses her temper bad shit happens.

I could feel the humming in the air whatever she was getting ready to cast I didn’t want to be anywhere near ground zero on the target site. The words started dropping from her lips as that monstrosity barreled our way, and finally as it got almost on us she let rip with. “Infernus diabolica concussio!” I’d never heard her cast anything like it before, and the hellish flame that roared at the Loa blew it to literal pieces, parts and bits rained down from the thing as it tumbled backward ripped to pieces by Elizabeth’s spell. It had sounded like a cannon shot, my ears were ringing as she lowered her out stretched hands and sighed. The Loa had been put down but a man had lost his life tonight I’d have to tell the local hunter his batman had taken one for the team, but we needed to get to a hospital and get those burns looked at.

The rest of our time on the island had gone swimmingly, I even got to see my wife in a bikini for the first time, believe me we enjoyed ourselves and relaxed till it was time to fly home, I had to ship the dragon belcher home by special post, and pass the remaining hand grenades off as artifacts when we went through customs, I got some strange looks but I am in the book listed as an antiquities dealer so they let me through. It comes in handy when you deal with such strange items as I usually run around with if you have a great cover identity to use to explain away the weird junk you collect.

There was already a message on my machine when I got home from my mother, I had really racked up some serious bills, and used the company card to pay for it all so to speak. Mom sounded like if I’d been around the wall paper on the walls of my apartment would have caught on fire. I made a mental note to call and explain in the morning, but it was after 11PM when we finally cleared customs and made it back to the apartment and both of us were done in from the flight. I hated flying well let me clarify that, I hate flying on airplanes by carpet or crested Roc it’s not so bad. Elizabeth said she had her broom license, but I didn’t know how I felt about trusting my life to a stick of wood and some straw. That and it didn’t sound to comfortable a ride either.

The next morning I called and listened to moms tirade then when she finally ran out of steam I explained what had happened on my honeymoon, mom made a hiccuping sound when I told her about Haku’s death she sort of sighed. I know when my mom is unhappy, but she sounded more depressed then usual. I could tell by the sound of her voice she had something else on her mind, and I figured I would have to drag it out of her.”Ok mom we’ve let the elephant stand in the room long enough, what are you worried about?” I could hear her rustling notes then she sighed again.”It’s the new apprentice they decided to saddle you with, I must admit Gilbert Becker comes from a very long line of monster hunters, his family have been responsible for most of Romania and Poland, but this boy is about the most inept bungler I have ever seen, please if he can’t be trained just tell me so and I will be forced to cashier him from the society.”

Being cashiered from the society meant all of the family history of monster hunting would end for that person if no remaining members of the family could be trained then that families line would be ended. I shuddered remembering back to when I was a kid and hearing about the Clements, they had been a family in Italy that hunted monsters after a rather nasty battle against some vampires the remaining children hadn’t been able to be trained, not everyone can use the medallion without a medallion you are just another defenseless human running around with some tools.

“So when is he supposed to arrive?” I heard her rustle some more notes then sigh again. “He should be there day after tomorrow, so Friday.” I nodded I would have to look into finding him a place to stay.”I’ll get him a place to stay does he have money to buy what he needs to furnish an apartment?” My mom laughed and confirmed that he had funds to get himself stuff for an apartment but likely he would need help, seeing as how he’d never been away from home before. I gritted my teeth and said good bye to my mom, Elizabeth had been checking the rest of our phone messages and said Oliver Randall had called several times, it seemed the local wizard might have gotten himself into a little trouble with the Fey underworld, yeah when I say that people laugh fairies running around like 1940’s gangsters makes people laugh when they hear it, but the fey underworld was a very real bunch of bastards who ran all of the legalized gambling in the fey world, and if you owed them something they tended to collect or send their collection agents to get what was owed, usually that amounted to the biggest nastiest troll they could find to work for them. I called Oliver Randall and he sounded really nervous when he picked up.”Braithwait you gotta help me, I owe Mickey Finn and he says he wants whats owed him tonight, if I don’t pay him what I owe him he’s sending Cobblestone over to tip me!” I had a good laugh at Olivers expense, then told him I’d be right over. Now dealing with the fey underworld you gotta think like they do, fairies are spellbound by shiny stuff, anything that attracts their eye and glitters makes them happy. I’d dealt with Mickey Finn before, he ran the numbers game on caterpillar racing, and goblin pit fighting. He wasn’t someone you really wanted to piss off or try to cheat.

I got to Olivers run down ramshackle apartment downtown the place stank of stale beer, and old gym socks, there were piles of dirty laundry and an underlying odor of KY jelly. I think I’ve said it before the man is a disgusting pervert, but he is a damned fine wizard. “Ok so what do you owe Mickey Finn?” Oliver looked at me and paled. “I bet on the goblin pit fights last week, and well lets just say my fighter lost, uh guess getting your head bitten off in the middle of the fight was a pretty good indicator of the loss I was going to suffer but I found that my stash of candy had been pilfered, I don’t get paid until next week and Mickey wants his candy right now!”  
Olivers voice had risen as he explained what had happened, it looked like Mickey had cleaned out all of the candy in Olivers place then told him if he didn’t pay up, the bridge troll that lived under The Centre Street Bridge was going to come pay him a visit. I knew that troll by reputation he minded his own business, and didn’t go around causing trouble he hadn’t been employed under contract to do, fey creatures love dealing in contracts, everything is a contract with them, if you crossed them you did so at your own peril. I knew Mickey had a serious sweet tooth, I think he was half tooth fairy. You never really knew what kind of fairy you were dealing with until you set up a meeting, I knew how to make a summoning circle to attract his attention I made sure I had the right kind of bait then sent out the signal by calling his name three times.

Creatures of the fey world are required to come, when their name is called three times, frankly I don’t like messing with fey, they tend to make your life a living hell if they get angry with you, from gremlins to garden gnomes everyone of them could make your life miserable. Mickey appeared within seconds, I noted five other shadows hanging with him. “So if it ain’t the big time monster hunter why you calling me? I’m a busy guy, especially this time of day, couldn’t this wait till after sundown?” I smiled I could see him licking his lips as he noticed the huge pile of sour lemon drops I knew he absolutely loved.

“My friend Oliver Randall says you threatened him with a trolling, is that true?” I could see the drool seeping out of his mouth by then. “He bet on goblin fights, and now he refuses to pay up, I am within my rights to collect, and you can’t interfere, I know what convention law says so shut up now seeing as you called me away from my business, I will be taking it out of the candy there.” He stepped toward the warded candy and I smiled. “You stole every piece of candy out of his apartment didn’t you!” You have to be very careful when you confront fey, from pixies to mites, they can get pretty peeved when they are forced to tell the truth, they hate it with a burning passion. The real problem is that they can’t outright lie to you, I’d just basically dropped the gauntlet in front of Mickey, if he tried to outright lie to me, the queen of the fey would punish him and when I say punish, she wasn’t known to be forgiving. 

“What, is that what he told you!?” I noticed he hadn’t replied he started with pawning it off on Oliver. I glared at him and noticed a couple of the pixies with him had appeared.”You want us to get rid of this pest boss?” If they came at me I had something in my pocket custom made to really hurt the little bastards. I pulled out the squirt gun with water and iron shavings in it, I’d modified a super soaker to spray the stuff, and done the same to the smaller pistol I had tucked in my pocket.”You wanna start something huh, you feeling lucky today do you Mickey!?”

I think he noticed the change in my voice it had gone from calm to the one I used when I was talking to critters who deserved to get smashed. “Do you really want me to call your boss lady and have you explain how you basically bilked Oliver Randall then demanded he pay you for his gambling losses, I think she would get pretty upset if she had to come out in daylight and possibly get burned by the sun, then again if your feeling frisky go ahead and try me.” If you show fear to the fey they will be on you like stink on shit. I knew I had pushed his buttons but when I mentioned calling the fey queen, he paled, his face lost all color, and he backed away from me. I brandished the squirt gun and the rest of them backed off, I think they knew then I wasn’t here to play games.

“You’ll get your candy Mickey but your gonna wait till next week I’ll make sure Oliver pays you, but if you ever threaten my friend again with a trolling I’ll catch your little winged ass in a steel mesh net and hang you upside down in a pot of iron shavings and water till your eyes pop out understand!?” They faded into the bushes, I could still hear them breathing but I knew I’d made myself understood. I broke the circle and left the huge pile of lemon drops there, it didn’t do me much good to antagonize the local fey underworld then not at least give them something for their trouble. I went back to Olivers place then I told him he would be required to pay double, because he was being allowed an extra week to make good on his debt, that might make him think twice about playing with fey again any time soon but I doubted it.

I got back to the house and spotted Scruff hanging around my place, usually ratfolk are pretty laid back, though scruff was the kind of girl who liked excitement, I sometimes used her special talents to track down things that lived in the sewers, I really hate chasing zombies and ghouls that like to make that place their home, I’d asked her to look into some unexplained happenings downtown, she could look like your average homeless person when she was using her disguise skills, I rolled up on her and made myself known.”What’s up Scruff, you got something for me?” She looked scared. I opened my door and Elizabeth said dinner would be ready in about twenty minutes, I showed Scruff into my living room and had her sit, usually Scruff would be all over watching TV or asking questions about stuff she was still just a kid really but she had to work. I smiled and waited. “I looked around down under, and where you asked me to look there's a real bad thing living there, it stinks and I found piles of bones, the street people down there have all moved away from that area.”

That was never a good sign, if the street people were running scared then it wouldn’t be much longer before average joe civilian turned up missing. “Are you sure about the bones?” She nodded, I had the sneaking suspicion something from across the veil had come over and set up house keeping in the sewer downtown, that made me real unhappy, creatures from across the veil don’t care what they do, we had had an infestation of Shroomers last year, nasty little critters who looked like a video game character but had an appetite for human flesh the spores they possessed stunned humans then they would drag you off and eat you alive, the things were a menace. Fire was your friend in that case. I still could smell shroomish stink on the coat I’d worn that time, it just never came out.

I thanked Scruff then paid her out of the cash I keep on hand to pay creatures and contacts I have made over the years. “Did you check out Carlo’s place?” I knew she had been searching for a place to live where nonhumans like herself wouldn’t get hassled, the average human would likely have lost their shit if they saw a bipedal rat person walking the streets, I got calls for all sorts of spottings usually involving the normal run of the mill encounters with one of the regulars, be it fey or a sasquatch peeping in peoples windows because it was curious, I still didn’t understand why a creature like a sasquatch would want to live near a city as big as Calgary but since the bird watcher incident he had hung around, just observing people.

After dinner Scruff left, she promised to go check out Carlo’s place, Carlo was an elf, but he’d set up on this side of the veil after he had a disagreement with one of the elf lords over someones daughter, I didn’t ask to many questions but he ran a decent business, he’d bought the apartments legally and used my services to do it, I wasn’t against helping out the folks from over the veil, I just wasn’t into a lot of the weird shit they liked, take porn pixies dear god they are obsessed with sex, I don’t know how many times I have gotten calls about people hearing tiny shrieks of pleasure coming from someones attic or basement only to find a lair full of the little crazy pixies having a wild orgy in someones car trunk. I had had to make some rules when it came to them, if they wanted to come over and be in the human world they had to come and speak to me first, that had caused a few nightmares but it was better then what had been going on before. I had found a Skag who for a few bucks a month would mind blip people who saw the porn pixies he allowed to live under his house.

Skags aren’t even remotely human they are reptilian things that happen to look a lot like what people would consider aliens, big eyes and small mouths, that can use their mind altering powers to make themselves look like humans I’d run into the Skag after finding the first orgy of porn pixies, I had ever gotten called out to take care of, he wasn’t a bad type he’d come across the veil because he had wanted to see this world, when you have as much gold as he did you buy things that matter to you he had actually found some of the local fey and asked if anyone could help him on this side. As it turned out I’d been the one recommended, I’d helped him and he in turn helped me by taking those nasty little sex pots off my hands, they exude pheromones that make other beings horny as hell, it’s natural for them though porn pixies like to play naughty games with anything walking basically.

If Oliver Randall ever found out about them likely things might get a bit dicey Oliver is a porn junkie, the man is a great wizard but I wouldn’t feel right actually shaking his hand, that reminded me I’d forgotten to speak to him about recharging my medallion. Elizabeth came into the livingroom then and sat in my lap. “So what’s on your mind sexy?” When she comes right out and says something like that I tend to get worried I have learned when shes in the mood, things can certainly get exciting at the Braithwait house. I told her I’d forgotten to talk to Oliver about my medallion and then she smiled that smile that usually meant Arthur Braithwait was in trouble.”You know now that were married I can likely take care of charging the medallion, how about we go in the bedroom and discuss it?”

I had a serious feeling the medallion was the last thing on her mind, but she proved me wrong, we sat down on the bed, and she smiled.”Ok hand me the medallion.” I’d been using the thing for so long it felt weird to take it off in front of anyone but my grandpa or when I had to hand it over to Oliver. Elizabeth looked at it, then I felt her reach out with her magic and touch it. I could feel my pulse racing, as she started to softly incant, her touch always made me feel so alive, in our line of work being alive mattered a whole lot.”Well there we go, I’m hoping that fully charged it, check it and see.” I reached for it back and put it around my neck. I held it out and softly mouthed the command to activate the medallion, it glowed with a pale blue light, it had never done that before but it looked fully charged. I kissed her softly then and things got a bit out of hand after that, our sex life sure hadn’t suffered by getting married, maybe it had actually gotten a little better, I thought it might have since now we were official the powers that be would likely leave us alone, man was that ever a wrong thought.

I explained what Scruff had come to talk about, and we debated going down there the next day, when there are things crawling around in the sewer, that are eating people you have to wonder just how long it will be till it grabs someone that will be noticed. Our evening ended with some serious adult fun, and we went to sleep. At breakfast the next morning Elizabeth called me into the kitchen, something had gotten into the cupboard and there was a mess all over the counters and floor. Busted jars of jelly, piles of sugar, flour dumped on the counter with foot prints left in it. I glared Elizabeth really got angry when she opened the fridge and found everything inside had been eaten.  
Elizabeth is usually pretty laid back with her magic, she doesn’t keep a ward of protection up usually people who are even remotely sensitive can feel a ward when they get close to it, but I could see by the look on her face that had just changed.”A gremlin had invaded our apartment, and made itself to home, making an absolute mess in the process, gremlins were a nasty little problem that sometimes infested human homes, they caused mischief and  
could eat you out of house and home. The anger in my wifes face made me swallow, this gremlin had made a serious error by picking our place. “Ok that’s stepping over the line, you little asshole!”

I grimaced she sounded pissed, Elizabeth raised her hands over her head and I heard the pop of her opening her pocket dimension where she kept her grimoire. Her spriggan hound appeared it’s tongue immediately hung out and it started to whine in anticipation wherever the gremlin had gone into hiding it was about to get a very unhappy visitor. I reached for the phone and ordered us some food from food fast, the lady on the other end took my order and said our food would be to us in 40 minutes. I thanked her while I watched my wife laying the charms she intended to use on the spriggan hound.

I went to the door and paid the driver for our food then put the bags on the table, by that time Elizabeth was ready to sic her hound on the messy little invader, the hound took off heading towards the office we had used the second bedroom in our apartment for. It vanished through the door, and we could hear screams and shrieks coming from inside, I went to the door and carefully pushed it open, the spriggan hound had the gremlin by the throat in the center of the room on the floor. I could see the whites of it’s bulgy eyes as it tried to get away from the hound it started pleading for it’s life, when she spotted Elizabeth enter the room drawing a wand from her pocket dimension, I guess invading the home of a witch hadn’t been the best decision it had ever made.

I saw the tip of her paralysis wand begin to glow, that particular spell would freeze the little bitch in place long enough for us to deal with it. There was a rushing noise and a streak of dark blue energy lashed out and struck the gremlin, the hound dropped the gremlin and sat, it’s tail wagging. I laughed for an elemental critter it seemed very dog like, Elizabeth reached down and scratched it behind the ears, telling it it was a good boy, I never could tell the difference when I was looking at elementals they all looked the same to me. Elizabeth smiled, popped her pocket dimension open, reached in and whispered something I couldn’t understand  
a collar appeared and she slipped it around the gremlins neck, she recited a command spell  
then tapped the gremlin on top of it’s furry head.

“Since you entered my home without permission and took it upon yourself to ravage our food supplies, I think it only fitting you serve me from now on until I deem it time to set you free once more, if you try to remove the collar, you will receive a steady shock, that will climb up the scale until you are unconscious on the floor, do you understand?” The Gremlin sat up and moaned, it put a hand to the collar and let out a squeak as it got zapped by the enchanted collar. “Do you have a name?” My wife’s question to it made it whine, I could see fear on it’s wrinkled little face.”Well speak up I know you can speak the fey tongue, don’t try to play games with me, that wouldn’t get you very far understand you can use a nick name if you wish I am not trying to bind you forever, understand?”

It stood up and looked at the Spriggan hound, another grimace went across its face but it told her it’s name was Gedgie, that surprised Elizabeth the little fey creature had spoken english I guessed she hadn’t expected it to speak english.”Very well Gedgie, why did you invade my house and ruin things?” Gedgie moaned again and started wringing her hands. “Do you want me to have the Spriggan hound chew on you some more until you tell me?” I knew that threat wouldn’t be enforced my wife might be angry but she wasn’t the kind of person to needlessly punish a creature without cause. “No mistress, no please! Gedgie was told to come here and make bad things happen.”  
I saw my wife smirk, she raised her right hand and the gremlin drew away thinking she was going to be punished further. She backed to the wall and put her little clawed hands across her chest to protect herself. When my wife picked her up and hugged her the little monster started to cry. I guessed she had never been treated with anything like kindness before. “Now then since you were told to do this bad thing by another, if you give me the name of the bad one I will  
only make you serve until a week has passed, so tell me what the bad ones name is.”

Gedgie’s face went pale, very real terror swept over her, apparently whoever the bad one was, she feared them more then she feared Elizabeth. I went and got my chronicle from the stand I kept it on, when I pulled out my medallion Gedgie immediately squeaked, and started to cry more. I opened the book and turned to the page I was looking for. I drew a rune circle on the floor then I outlined it with the symbols of the five elements, Elizabeth moved closer to watch what I was doing her eyebrows rose as I started laying out the runes I planned to use. I went to my storage box and took out the spelled dagger, it was a hunter’s seeker, the blade was a potent talisman and would be useful for the ritual I planned to perform.

When I was finished I gestured to my wife, she walked over with the gremlin in her arms I explained to the gremlin what I was going to do, and that I would need a single drop of her blood to power the ritual. I showed her the blade was made of bronze and wasn’t cold iron, I went on to tell her I would only prick her finger, this would bring whoever had sent her by the elder covenant ritual I had just finished, I hadn’t used the ritual more then a few times in my life, it made fey and such like creatures really nervous when someone started using rituals last heard over 2000 years ago in the middle east. My family heritage goes way back we had weapons forged in ancient babylon by powerful sorcerers men who had made contracts with the elder powers, beings that used to be known as gods in the old world. Gedgie held her right hand out to me I could see she was shaking, the single drop of blood rolled down the blade,and set the runes carved into it to glowing softly, I put the dagger in the prepared circle and went to the weapons locker, I pulled out my Griffin,strapped it on and loaded the thing with enchanted iron, I had a feeling I might know who had sent the gremlin to make trouble in my house. I returned to the circle and saw the ritual was finished.

I nodded and drew the pistol.”When I set this in motion there’s going to be one hell of a wind in here, an elemental wind spirit will go grab whoever it was sent Gedgie, and I can tell you they aren’t going to be happy when they get here.” Elizabeth nodded, Gedgie covered her eyes  
and I could hear her whimpering. I whispered the command word and the zephyr blasted into this world from the elemental plane, I bade it go and retrieve the being who had sent the blood bound to the ritual. It roared the breeze howled for a second in the room, then it was gone with a pop. Ten minutes later the wind elemental reappeared a howling fairy clutched in it’s sharp claws, it dropped Mickey Finn in the elder circle, and disappeared with a pop.

I smiled the boss of the local fey underworld looked like he had just had a very scary ride here. “So you couldn’t leave it alone huh Mickey, you thought maybe you would cause me and mine trouble, did our little run in make it hard for you with your boys, if you so much as breath a word of falsehood the circle you are now standing in will punish you with the elder runes fire,water,air,earth and the void do you want me to just roll the dice and see which one you get first or will you tell me the truth?” He growled and shot me the bird, I knew he would need to have the shit scared out of him, he was a fairy after all, likely he wasn’t up on ancient lore but I knew someone who was. When he told the first falsehood the circle would automatically summon the fey queen by ancient covenant she would be compelled to come here, I was betting If my threats couldn’t make Mickey Finn behave seeing the Fey queen appear by a human summons might make him crap his drawers.

“What is your true name?” Mickey screwed up his face and spat at me.”Rumple Stiltskin you ass wipe hummie!” The circle set his tiny shoes on fire for his trouble, Mickey began hopping around like a caged grasshopper, when he hit the rune walls of the circle he let out a real scream. A deep hum started to fill the room, I could hear the sound of rushing wind, I felt the chill of dank pervading darkness begin to fill the corner of the office, I heard a screech of hellish noise and the Fey queen herself appeared in the room, now she’s not like the rest of them she stands about a head taller then any other fairy, her eyes were burning green pits that glared at me, then I bowed, she was royalty after all, one respected those who lead super natural nations even if she was a cold blooded monster when she wanted to be, I knew being summoned here was not on her list of things to do today.

Just coming out in the daytime was likely pissing her off a whole bunch right now, Elizabeth offered her refreshments, she hissed and shook her head no I saw her eyes go to the circle that contained Mickey Finn, she turned to look at me more closely then and she pulled out a small fan. “I see one of you still survives, do you know how painful it was for me to be dragged here, I was in the middle of court when the shadow hands grabbed my person and whisked me here. What has brought me here? I wish to be gone from the mortal world as quickly as possible!” I indicated Mickey Finn, she hissed and for the first time Mickey Finn let out a squeak of real fear. “Your majesty this person sent agents into my house to cause trouble even after I told him if he committed any other trouble that concerned me or mine he would earn my onus you know Hunters of the Society have always kept the ancient covenant with the Fey world the veil knows we follow Hern if it truly needs reminding I can summon him?” The fey queens eyes went to me, I saw her face grow just a little paler, she stammered and covered her lapse.

”No we shan't need to call him, so Mickey Finn it seems you have finally found someone who isn’t afraid to take you to task, I think you will be coming home to court for the next hundred years or so, maybe when you win back my favor, I might let you once again return to the mortal world, if you displease me further I might just send you out some full moon night, now then please release him, I shall take him home.” 

I broke the circle and let her reach in and grab Mickey Finn by the collar of his 1940’s suit, she hissed something at him in sidhe I didn’t quite catch and smacked him in the back of his head as she pushed him towards a portal she had summoned to take them back to her kingdom on the other side of the veil.”Well that business seems done, Gedgie the bad one who made you come do bad things won’t be bothering you again.” The gremlin nodded and asked to be put down, Elizabeth let her down on the floor and we went to eat our breakfast. After breakfast we checked in at the office and ran into Mary, she’s the gal we hired as a secretary   
she was a sensitive who had come to work for us about a year ago.

“Mr Cradik is here to see you, he said he would wait.” I raised an eyebrow, it wasn’t everyday one of the local fey business men came to see the local hunter. Elizabeth and I breezed in he was sitting in front of my desk, Elizabeth went to our coffee station and started a pot going. “Something I can do for you Abner?” I watched his spectacled eyes turn to me, and I felt a little unnerved by the huge refraction of his purple eyes, Abner Cradik was a tinker gnome  
he made magical appliances, normal technology didn’t react to well around most of the fey and a lot of the elemental folk either, the more magical the worse it got.  
“Ah Arthur I have a small problem it seems one of my suppliers ran into a bit of a problem when they were coming across the veil, I lost an entire shipment of enchanted crystals and gears of mithril, without those parts my business will suffer, I have contracts pending, things I was to create and get to my customers, Grimjaw Plushbottom came into my shop this morning and he was rather angry when I told him I hadn’t gotten his auto washer made for him yet, please this is the second time these goblins have hit my caravans coming out of fey lands.”

Grimjaw Plushbottom was an Ogre he ran the underground transit system used by most of the local veil community, he was rich as they came and had a bad attitude when things didn’t go his way. I promised Abner we would look into the theft, and he left in a hurry. We spent the rest of the morning talking to the utility people about a certain area downtown, we found out exactly where service was not working so well, Elizabeth started researching we were trying to uncover what it might be before we went in blind, she came up with three possibles by the time lunch rolled around, none of the things she thought it could be made me happy, if it was a minotaur we were screwed, those things took more people then just Elizabeth and I plus they were highly intelligent, the second was a cave spider unlike most arachnids these monsters wandered over the veil and set up shop to eat people of course being the size of the average car you just couldn’t call in the local pest control service. The last thing really bothered me, if it was a basilisk and a lot of things were pointing that direction we could be seeing a migration, where one basilisk appeared, usually you found loads of them they bred like crazy to, I didn’t really like any of the options.”Let’s get some lunch, then I think I’ll give Carlo a call and see if Scruff decided to move in, I need to ask her a few more questions just to see if she remembered anything else.” Elizabeth wanted to go to the local diner, we usually ate there at least two or three times a week and the food was really good.

”Table for two?” I looked up and Franny the waitress that served us smiled. We ordered two daily lunch specials and sat down to brain storm over what we had learned that morning.Half way through lunch I noticed someone was eyeballing me, it’s a sixth sense hunters have that gets activated when were in close proximity to something from across the veil. Who ever it was they were really close. Franny came back to refill our coffee and I noticed she had an unfamiliar flower tucked behind her ear, after she left to check on other guests I mentioned the flower to Elizabeth. “It’s an elf lily, and they are used as signs of affection, whoever gave it to her, is telling her they are in love with her, I don’t know if she realizes it or not but that thing could spell real trouble for a mortal, they can have a mind altering effect on humans.”  
That made me a little concerned, I decided to step to the restroom and in doing so checkout the kitchen area through the side door, that’s when I spotted the young male elf working at the dish washing station, his glamour spell was pretty good but there was a bit of a shine to his face, the kid must be fresh into his power, and coming to the mortal world for the first time. Franny came in and dropped off some dirty dishes, he smiled at her and the 19 year old girl smiled back I noticed the blush that came to her face and the way she stopped to touch his hand on her way back out. Okay so we had a bit of an issue, that might be innocent or it could be a little dicey, I went and washed my hands then made my way back to the table.

Franny had just refreshed our coffee, I smiled as she moved on to her next customers Elizabeth nodded at her retreating back, I relayed what I had learned to her and we decided to tell Franny about her current boyfriend. We got up to pay and Elizabeth got Franny’s attention, she started explaining the problem when I sensed eyes on us, Franny smiled at Elizabeth, then Galvin came to the dish station, he ignored the dishes and reached for Franny’s hand, I saw what looked like real concern on his face. Franny reached out and I could see from the way she held his hand we were looking at true love. “Galvin and I are in love Mrs Braithwait, and yeah I know exactly who he really is, it kinda can’t be ignored when your in bed with someone.”

The kid held her hand and explained he had come to the mortal world to see what it was all about, then he’d run into Franny at a local dance club, they had become friends she had helped him get the job here at the diner, and they were talking about marriage. By the time they got to marriage I’d started smiling the elf kid had come to the mortal world and unexpectedly found more then he’d bargained for. “If you kids need any help with anything, give us a call.” I handed Franny our card and we headed out. I felt kind of refreshed and reached for my wife's hand. “I guess not everything is at it seems, I hope they make it.” My comment to her made her grin, and give me a quick peck on the cheek. We went back to the office and grabbed our gear then headed downtown to go investigate the area we had researched.

I put in a call to Carlo and he picked up on the third ring.”Carlo’s place, Carlo speaking.” I grinned “Carlo did Scruff come get a place from you?” I could hear him rustling notes.”Yeah Arthur rented her a single bedroom yesterday, told her I’d help her get utilities hooked up, the guy that usually shows up is getting curious about this place after all this time.” I liked Carlo he was good people.”Is she there?” He confirmed she was there, and I waited till she picked up. “Hey Arthur, I went back down yesterday and took another quiet look around, found some scales near a big pile of bones.” My face fell so we had confirmation of what we were going to be dealing with, now basilisks can come in a lot of sizes but when you find piles of bones in the amounts Scruff was talking about you were dealing with a small pack or one really big ass lizard. I thanked Scruff for the information, and hung up. 

Elizabeth was going through her spells at her desk, I knew enough by now not to disturb her when she was prepping for something like this, so I went and started sorting my own gear out. When I noticed she was done I told her what I had learned from my conversation with Scruff. She nodded and I saw her get up and go to the office broom closet, she only kept two items in there, her riding broom and her Eldritch staff, my wife knows her business, putting down monsters was what we did,after she retrieved the staff, she returned to her desk and started to load it with some damned heavy firepower spells. 

Three eldritch blasts and two lightning bolts later she was breathing hard. I saw sweat on her brow but I left it alone, magic isn’t as simple as people think it is, magic is energy you have in your body that gets used to manipulate the elemental forces you have made contracts with. High powered spells took a lot out of a person. I watched her reach for a bottled water from the office fridge and I smiled. “If we keep getting business like we have been getting around here for the last few months I am going to have to summon and contract some larger elementals.” I stared at my wife like spiders were issuing from out of her mouth.”You’re kidding right?” When she shook her head no, I about lost my shit right there.”Elizabeth the last time you upgraded an elemental we nearly burned the apartment down, what is it this time!?”

“I need stronger ice spells, my fire mephit isn’t up to the task of higher tier spells so she needs replacing and I have finally researched something new for my arsenal, this will be the first time I try reaching into the shadow realm and contracting something there.” Those words sent a chill up my spine. “Are you out of your mind!? The shadow realm you have got to be kidding me, that place is full of the nastiest things this side of hell, why do you need to mess with that place?” My face must have been red, she swallowed and brought out her grimoire from her pocket dimension. I sat down and tried to get my emotions under control, it wouldn’t do me any good to start yelling I knew when I married a witch there could be times like this, but I certainly didn’t have to like it. The spell that had appeared was called Shadow rift, She’d been researching it for about two months now and I didn’t like it at all, shadow beings like what she was trying to contract were how can I put it, scary as hell, they fed off human emotions and if a person wasn’t very careful they could suck everything out of you and leave the emotionless husk behind. 

“Arthur you know if I didn’t need this to increase my knowledge I would never mess with something like this, but I have been informed I am up soon for tier review, the coven places a lot of powerful responsibility on the shoulders of partnered witches, it’s because we have a mortal contract with our partners that allows us into the top ranks.”  
I screwed up my face so getting married had opened the door on her entering the top tiers of the coven, I scratched my head and listened to her explain what would happen during her tier review she might be directly inducted into the higher ranks of the coven depending on how her testing trials went, I could see she was starting to cry, I felt like the biggest heel in the world right about then because I’d started badgering her over her life's work. “Alright so I can see this means a whole lot to you love, I didn’t mean to get mad, we good?” I saw a tiny smile come to her lips and she sighed. “Arthur I’m pretty scared, the trials aren’t easy, they are meant to test a witch or warlock to the very limits of their power, and the conductors of those trials are relentless, if you screw up they won’t baby you along, and I know Velma Rupert will be one of my trial conductors.”

I sighed and folded Elizabeth in my arms, I could feel the tension she was feeling.”So this thing you want to contract from the shadow realm you know what it is you’re looking for?” My question brought another smile to her lips.”Yeah I’m looking for a shadow hound, I am hoping I can find a pup, if I can find one then things should be ok.” I nodded and we tabled her getting a shadow hound until after we dealt with the problem in the sewer, I asked her to send a seeking spell into the sewers where we intended to go do pest eradication today. Elizabeth brought out her crystal ball set it on her desk, and started incanting. The area on her forehead where her third eye is began to glow softly. The eldritch eye appeared and Elizabeth directed it to go where the map plotted dot was into the sewers and begin surveillance on whatever it found down there.

We waited for half an hour while the sending traveled to the location then started to send back what it was seeing to us via the crystal ball on Elizabeth’s desk. I couldn’t see a thing but she sucked in a frightened breath. The blood drained from her face, I swallowed my wife is usually pretty brave if something had scared her this much then it had to be very bad. “That doesn’t look promising babe, what are you seeing?” She turned to me the look on her face told me what ever it was it was going to be a serious problem getting rid of it.“Arthur it’s a greater basilisk, and it has a nest.” I’d never seen a greater basilisk before I’d only ever read of one encounter back during the early Roman empire days 5 hunters had lost their lives and it took three days to die. I went to my chronicle and started looking for information on the greater basilisk what I found made me sick to my stomach, the adults were from 20 to 30 feet long, and weighed in at 800 to 1000 pounds. They had a breath weapon that caused paralysis and a gaze that caused terror. Fighting one was going to be a serious problem I saw we weren’t going to be dealing with it today society rules read a hunter encountering this beast is required to call to their hunt master or mistress and wait for assistance to arrive. 

That meant a kill team would be assembled to come and hunt this massive beast down. I was to make sure the thing was kept under observation I was not to approach under any circumstances. “Were going to have to wait, how long can you keep the observation spell going?” She sighed and looked at the clock on the wall. That one will end in an hour, I can cast another when it goes, but after that I don’t know love.” I sat back in my chair and thought about it.”What about using the drone I bought last year, we could fly it down and park it somewhere to watch it?” Elizabeth grinned. “That sounds like someone was using his head.” She leaned over and gave me a kiss, I got up and went to the office closet, I kept the drone in there, guess we’d be on stake out in the car until the kill team arrived. We’d need to recharge the drone every four hours or so. Elizabeth could do that with magic, we’d tested it on more then one occasion, I told her to take a cab down to my location once the spell ran out and we would work the drone in shifts. 

When the kill team arrived we would join them, then go in and kill that bitch.I’d been sitting in the car for an hour and a half when she walked up and opened the door, I grinned when she tossed a bag of take out from the local chinese place at me and slid into the passengers side seat.”Has it moved from the nest since I started on over here?” I shook my head and opened my sweet and sour chicken, I grinned as I tore into it, it was perfectly done. I started eating likely we would be at the location for a couple of days, before the team got here. Mom had about lost her mind, when I called and told her what I had found in the local sewer. Tomorrow I would need to pick up my new apprentice at the airport, then I needed to get him settled I’d called Carlo earlier while watching the drone cam and he said he had an apartment on the third floor he would rent to my apprentice cheap. It paid to make friends I finished my dinner and Elizabeth pointed at the cam monitor screen. “She’s on the move we going to follow her or wait till she comes back?” 

I scratched my head, and powered up the drone.”Job said were supposed to keep an eyeball on it at all times, if she gets into an area where lots of people are we’re going to have serious trouble.” The thing moved like a crocodile, I noticed it had really oversized eyes on it’s thick necked head, a local stray cat became her next meal, I noticed the speed it had, when she spotted the cat it was like the thing went on turbo, she’d been plodding along then raised her head sniffed and shot after the cat at like 60 miles per hour, something that big I would have thought it would be slow but that wasn’t the case, now I began to understand just what those guys back in ancient Rome must have thought when they saw it rolling at them.

I followed her back with the drone then asked Elizabeth to recharge it, the thing burned up a lot of power when it was flying, she smiled and reached into her kit bag. She pulled out the short wand she used for electrical spells, and I watched her lean her head back and close her eyes, I knew from the past she was concentrating on the drone, I watched her eyelids flutter then she opened her eyes and smiled.”Full recharge Mr Braithwait, can I get a kiss for my trouble?” I knew that look. “Okay before this goes any further, the last time the cops caught us making out in the car we nearly ended up downtown for indecent exposure.”

“I never.” She started laughing and I knew she was feeling frisky my wife tends to be a very sensual person, I guess maybe having lived all those years by herself she likes to feel the excitement, I leaned over and kissed her. She pulled my head in and really put the lip lock on me, it felt good to be with her, our relationship had grown pretty deep over the last five years I think maybe she’d been experiencing some amount of nervousness over her upcoming trials and I was a handy relief from those worries. We kissed for several minutes then I pulled away. “Babe this is fun and all, but we have a monster that needs watching.” She slowly nodded and slid back into her seat. I could see she was disappointed, I felt bad knowing what you had to do and it always conforming to your life didn’t always sync up, right about then I was wishing I never knew anything about my family business, but then I would have never met Elizabeth.

“So how about when this is all over, we go away for a nice weekend and spend some quality time together?” My question made her grin.”Arthur have you ever seriously thought about children?” I did a double take. We’d never even discussed children before, then again we hadn’t been married before. I swallowed, if we had kids what would their lives be like, probably a lot like my childhood had been. Mom and dad off saving the world from things better not seen in the light of day. “Well I am sure not against us having kids babe, but are we sure were ready for what that means?” The question seemed to hang in the air between us and I smiled nervously.Then she dropped the bomb.”Arthur, I think I’m pregnant.” My mind started doing some fast calculations in my brain, which was starting to head towards jibber city on the fast train. “You sure?” I finally was able to get past my lips. She reached into her kit bag and pulled out one of those over the counter pregnancy tests it was showing two little lines and they showed positive. I thought back to our honeymoon, it had to have been when we got back from taking out the Loa the adrenaline pumping, through our systems had made us both really horny, thinking back I hadn’t even thought about using protection,we’d gotten back to the room, and basically torn each others clothes off, what had we been thinking. Well I know what we had been thinking at the time but we were in it now.

“Babe come here.” I saw her tears as she dove across the seat and into my arms. I felt Like a heel, she was probably going just a bit crazy, and having come out and said that, my reaction had likely not been what she was looking to hear. “Listen babe I love you, so were gonna need a new place to live since were going to need a babies room, what say that weekend we had planned we go house hunting?” Elizabeth's eyes lit up, and her face looked like it was glowing. “Oh Arthur, your not mad then?” I stared at her like she was nuts.”Babe love is what it is, I just hope this kid is ready for the kind of life we lead.” Elizabeth wiped tears from her eyes and kissed my cheek. “I thought from your reaction you were upset about it.”

I laughed.”Nah but I bet my mom is gonna go through the roof, when she hears she’s going to be a grandma.” My mom and dad had had 7 kids, my older brothers were working all over the world, my two younger sisters had decided to stay at home and understudy with mom, learning the administration and business side of the family business, that didn’t mean they didn’t see action it just meant they were most likely to succeed mom when she finally decided to retire. My family are really tight knit, we might be all over the world but we kept in fairly good contact with each other my oldest brother Miles was on his third kid already, his wife got pregnant at the drop of a hat, or maybe it was due to the fact he traveled a lot covering the territory he had and when he came home well you know.

The stake out lasted another two days, the car was full of take out trash and I think the local laundromat was starting to think we took up living in our car and using their toilet every time we needed it. I spotted the van as soon as it turned the corner. The cavalry had arrived, I nudged Elizabeth awake and pointed to the van that was pulling up behind us. Mom parked behind me and her and dad stepped out to gear up, the rest of the team had gone out the back of the big panel van and started unloading all of their gear. There were a couple of faces I knew but mom introduced me to those I didn’t we made introductions, and got prepped the damned Basilisk hadn’t moved much since the day before, it was just sitting on it’s nest.

I’d gone the day before and picked up my apprentice, he was in the process of furnishing his new apartment, I had promised him we would start his training next week. The kid seemed pretty nice, I hoped he could catch on to how this job went, we needed every hunter we could get the world kept getting worse year by year, and we couldn’t figure out why. I popped a hellfire load into the Dragon fire belcher and speed loaded my griffin with X head hollow point rounds. The big pistol felt good on my hip. Elizabeth filled her sash with wands, and grabbed her staff out of the back of the car. I finished filling my ammo belt with speed loads, then filled a thigh pouch with the big loads for the dragon belcher. I turned and grinned mom was toting a double barreled wyvern it was a modified elephant gun, the loads it fired were bigger then my dragon belchers.”What didn’t think to bring the rocket launcher?” I thought my joke went over well until dad stepped from behind the truck and threw the said item over his shoulder.”Why would we forget it at home?” I closed my mouth the old man started laughing, I hadn’t been seriously thinking they would bring it, but I guess when you go hunting something this big you took every advantage you could get.

I finished my load out with two holy hand grenades, and closed the trunk. We looked like gods gift to hardware but I knew the thing we were hunting wasn’t going down lightly. Mom handed out headset radios, and we did a quick sound check. Everybody was good, the manhole cover behind the panel truck got pushed aside and down we went, the place was absolutely rank, I nearly gagged on the way down the ladder, why did these things love hiding out in the damned sewers of all places. That thought kept me busy while we made the approach, Barry and Karen were scouting on ahead,looking for possible trouble spots and kept a running conversation back to mom on what they were seeing. Elizabeth let out a yelp when a mouse landed on her shoulder and continued on its frightened way.

I couldn’t help but laugh, she looked at me with a look of disgust then she started to giggle to.”Okay so I don’t like mice.” I put my hands up in a innocent gesture and we continued on. The scouts reached the end of the bigger tunnel and we all rejoined a single party somewhere up ahead was the greater Basilisk, suddenly mom and dad both stopped and held up their right fists, we all stopped dead in our tracks, something really big was moving our direction as it moved out of the shadowed smaller tunnel into the area we were in I could see it was the thing we had come to hunt. It suddenly stopped and raised its head, we could all hear it making snuffling sounds, dad raised the rocket launcher to his shoulder but it was to late.

A rocket went sizzling down the hallway and the Basilisk went on turbo, it came at us at 60 miles per hour smashing rents in the concrete floor of the sewer as it barreled towards us.Dads rocket clipped the things armored head and bounced off to explode in the sewer ceiling it blasted chunks of debris out and the thing kept coming mom fired the wyvern the shot sounded like a cannon going off in this confined space and the basilisk did a head over as the huge shell made it face plant I could see that giant lizard’s body coming at us it ended up on it’s back and as if it hadn’t been moving fast already the thing went berserk it flipped itself right and whatever it did it was on us, the speed was unlike anything I had ever fought before, I watched Marcus Henderson get literally bitten in half blood sprayed the floor, and it was screaming a gods awful noise, I made sure not to look directly at it, couldn’t forget the things eyes would be bad if we locked gazes.

The melee that ensued got very confusing after that mom let go with the second round of the wyvern dad dropped the rocket launcher and grabbed his griffin others were scrambling to get in position to attack I drew down on it with the dragon fire belcher and let go nearly point blank the big shell sizzled into the things side and started burning inside the monster, then I was flying through the air, I landed face down on the concrete floor with a wuff of hard impact the things tail had sent me for a ride. I tried to sit up and my head started spinning, I figured right then I might have a slight concussion, definitely bruised or maybe even broken ribs from where I’d been slapped like a baseball out of the way. I could see my wife standing over me words I couldn’t understand were dropping from her lips, she extended the staff and the place lit up like dawn had just risen, a screaming bolt of azure lightning flew from the end of her staff and smashed the thing in the face, the lightning crackled over the things armored head and it started   
shrieking like a train whistle, it slewed it’s huge body sideways, and smashed people out of it’s way like a batter lining up a line drive for the fences.

Three people got swatted away, I could see dad dragging out the combat machete he carried and leaping on the things back, dad started chopping into the things head,like a lumber jack cutting wood. Next thing he was flying away when the thing started rolling over to splash in the sewer line the smell was enough to choke someone burning basilisk mixed with sewer stench, we had been lucky there hadn’t been any sewer gas built up that would have been a hellish explosion. I finally was able to sit up Elizabeth was still standing right there with me, the basilisk plowed down the tunnel towards us but we couldn’t move fast enough to get out of it’s way, it barreled into us head down eyes closed, and just tossed us like bowling pins I reflexively fired into it as I tumbled, the big bore bullets tore into the things head and I saw chunks of flesh blown away. Elizabeth landed on me and I could hear her swearing at it.

My wife started incanting the words were sharp vowels and guttural sounding her hands began to glow and I could hear that loud humming sound that I’d come to recognize as whatever she was using it was going to be wild.”Infrigia iciclas!” A frozen cloud of razor sharp icicles impaled the basilisks head which by now was mostly ruined eyes and torn armored flesh. I heard the inhalation and grabbed for Elizabeth pulling her to safety just as the thing spat out a cloud of it’s paralytic venom, not only did the stuff paralyze you but the toxic venom ate into your flesh. We landed in a heap the basilisk rumbled on and smashed into a wall, it was tearing at the ice spears lodged in its face with both clawed front feet, I sort of felt a little pity for it but it deserved to die.

Jenny Allen went past us and threw a harpoon into the thing I rolled over and tried to cover Elizabeth with my body the explosive tipped harpoon went in and erupted with a loud bang, Jenny was knocked off her feet when the thing started thrashing around shrieking and mewing like a dying cat, the harpoon had opened up the things back like a can opener we could see whitish yellow bone and a gush of dark black blood fountained out of it, finally it dropped to the floor and lay still, it was finally dead. The scene around us looked like a war zone mom was helping dad up to a sitting position wrapping medical gauze around the head wound he had. Others were reaching for med kits three bodies were left cooling on the sewer floor. Jenny ran to her husband Mikes body and just fell apart, the emotional firestorm of losing your partner left her speechless, Elizabeth went to try and console her I got up using the butt of the dragon fire belcher as a cane, I stumbled back to where mom and dad were.

“Jobs not done yet, that thing has a nest shes been sitting on ever since we located her if there are eggs.” My dad let out a sulfurous curse, and started going off in Latin it sounded like he was gathering up a good head of steam mom sighed and picked up the wyvern she and I went down the passageway dad was out of commission he’d broken both legs when the thing had basically rolled over with him on it’s back, I didn’t know what was going to happen when emergency services got called but we would think of something. There were six very large water melon sized black eggs in the nest when we found it. I was all for smashing them to a pulp but mom held up her hand to stop me. I wasn’t feeling very kind hearted at the time so I got mad and started yelling. She took out a book from her kit bag and held it up.”Stanwick R&D will pay us 2 million a piece for each one of those eggs we need the money boy!” I sighed and looked down at 12 million in cash sitting in a dead Basilisk nest, then turned and vomited, it must have been a delayed reaction to the concussion I had.

We called in a local clean up team, and got everyone including the bodies back to be extracted. My chest was aching, my head hurt and my right leg felt like I had bruised it from crotch to knee Elizabeth helped Jenny Allen to the exit, the woman was in shock all of our dead would be buried with honors, though that thought wouldn’t bring anyone left much comfort until later. I went in the ambulance when it finally got called and went to the emergency room. Doctor Samuel Schwartz was on duty, I felt a whole lot better seeing a familiar face, the doc was clued in on the super natural happenings I’d been a patient of his before.”Well getting into trouble again huh Braithwait just can’t keep the monsters from chewing on you?” I grinned the doc liked to kid me about my dangerous profession but he knew people in my line of work were bound to get injured.

“Doc I just like to come look at your ugly mug once in a while, give me some credit.” He laughed and had me lay down on the table he checked my head injury first and told me I had a concussion just like I had thought, the ribs were bruised not broken after an x-ray, and the leg injury was a huge purple bruise on my right leg that he whistled over. “Did you piss Elizabeth off?” I let out a laugh and shook my head no. “If she’d been the one laying the smack down on me I’d need intensive care.” My ribs got a compression bandage, the head injury got information about treating it along with a pain killer prescription and the bruise I got told would likely turn a really nice shade of green by the time I was told to come back for a check up at his regular office. By the time I got back to the apartment Elizabeth had gotten home with the car.

Gilbert Becker was standing outside my apartment, and he looked upset.”Hey boss I heard from Carlo that you went hunting today, what gives I thought you were supposed to be training me to hunt monsters down!?” Elizabeth looked at him like he had just lost his mind and I invited him inside and told him about our harrowing adventure that morning, Gilbert's face got white when I got to the part about Marcus Henderson getting bitten in half, he ran to my bathroom and threw up.”So do you still think you were ready to go hunting this morning apprentice Becker?” He stared at me when he came out of the bathroom and shook his head no. I told him that over the next week during my recovery we would be running him through some simple jobs.

Elizabeth went to see her gynecologist, and we found out we were really going to be parents. I guess having a witch for a mom and a hunter for the society as a dad might not be so bad, man that thought would come back to bite me in the future but for now everything seemed to be coming up roses. I had Gilbert start by hunting down a band of porn pixies, the kid thought the job was gonna be easy, by the end of his first day he was pleading with me to take them away.”So you tracked them down kid whats the big problem?” He stared at me and started listing everything they had done since he caught them I laughed.”Kid you got two choices you either find them somewhere safe away from normal humans, or you find a portal and send them back beyond the veil.” He looked serious for a second then said.”Can I keep them?”

Ok I thought for a second if he had said could he keep them, he nodded when I asked if that’s what he had said and he confirmed that yes that had been exactly what he had said, ok so I was guessing his brain had had a melt down somewhere in the last few hours. But he explained it to me. As it turned out a couple of the pixie’s had been chased by cats and were very grateful not to have been eaten. I scratched my head and thought it over.”If you make a contract with them you realize they are your responsibility from now on right?!” Gilbert looked me right in the eye and a pixie face looked out of his coat, she was a cute little thing bright yellow eyes and her skin was a pale purple, the light wispy hair she had was corn silk gold. 

She looked like she was pretty shy for a porn pixie, but once I said that Gilbert could indeed keep them she slowly climbed out of his coat. Her voice was a pleasant little sound when she said thank you. I thought the kid was crazy but he was willing to take responsibility for a group of porn pixies I guess he just needed to know they were going to be all right. I got called to dinner and Gilbert packed his little friend off back to his apartment, ok so he wasn’t the sharpest knife in the drawer but at least he knew what taking responsibility was about, I told Elizabeth what had happened with Gilbert and she started laughing. “You realize once they know his place is now home, they will open up shop right?” I nodded he had wanted to take responsibility for them, he was going to learn exactly what that meant in a hurry.

His next job I sent him on was to catch a pooka it had been causing no end of mischief for the residents of a local shopping mall, the thing had taken to terrorizing people in the bathrooms, I didn’t think it’s brand of humor was funny one bit, I gave Gilbert a sidhe catching net and sent him off to catch the little bastard, around ten o’clock in the evening as we were getting ready for bed Elizabeth answered the door Gilbert had the stupid pooka by the foot and was holding it head down standing outside of our apartment. The kid was painted bright orange it looked like from a spray can and the pooka was swearing at him in fey tongue, wow the little turd could really lay down the curses.

I went and got the iron bird cage I had had made for creatures like him, and told him in no uncertain terms that if he did not return across the veil I would have Gilbert shove his nasty little body in the iron bird cage where he would live the rest of his very short life while I found a red cap to sell him to. The threat turned the pooka white with terror, red caps were known to be brutal monsters. He started babbling and promising to leave this very second, pleading with me not to sell him to such a creature. I had had no intention of selling him but the threat of selling him had done what I intended.”You will not cross over for a year and a day, if you do my young friend will come find you and perhaps a red cap wouldn’t be needed likely we’ll just tie you up in iron bindings and drop you down the deepest well I know exists.”

Gilbert put the pooka down and he started chanting as fast as his little tongue could form the words, he disappeared in a cloud of blue smoke. Gilbert stared at me, he had an incredulous look on his face.”You wouldn’t really have thrown him down a well would you?” I sighed and told him that a threat was sometimes better then the alternative. I heard a titter coming from his coat pocket, I sighed when the little porn pixie from the other night poked her head out and fluttered up to sit on Gilbert’s shoulder. Elizabeth came out of the kitchen and started laughing. “I think your apprentice has just a bit of a problem, it looks like the little porn pixie is in love with him.” I threw my hands up, the kid was sure having enough problems.”Okay what’s she doing in your pocket?” 

Gilbert stood up taller.”She’s been helping me.” Gilbert explained how Lilla had been doing things for him,she’d been helpful in locating the pooka and even distracted it while he netted the little monster. Elizabeth shrugged her shoulders I scratched my head, I’d never thought a porn pixie would be helpful, they were usually noisy little pests that caused people no end of trouble.”Has she been behaving herself?” She’s not dusting you or using her pheromone’s on you?” Lilla made a tiny sound I could see tiny little tears in her eyes. Okay I was feeling like a meany right about that time, I’d just made a porn pixie cry. Gilbert began talking softly to her and she made a big sniff, then fluttered down to the table.”I promised Gilbert I would be good, I have been being good, are you mad at me?”

Her tiny voice made me sigh. She was a porn pixie but she was trying very hard to be a better creature.”Okay if you really want to help him, will you take a binding contract with him?” I knew pixies like any fey were wily they knew every trick in the book. She never batted an eyelash. She marched to me and held her tiny right hand up.”I will, bring forth the contract I’ll sign it.” Elizabeth giggled and went to get a sheet of paper from our home office. “So Lilla are you sure you want to do this with Gilbert? You might be with him a long time.” She nodded her little head, I watched Gedgie peer out of the kitchen door she looked interested in the proceedings, and only had a couple days left on her sentence, which hadn’t been more then cleaning the house and putting things away.

I wrote out a contract of binding and had Gilbert sign it, then I had Lilla place her hand on the ink pad I used for my stamps and put her hand print on the document, Elizabeth cast a spell of binding on it, when the binding was sealed. Lilla let out a happy little squeal and fluttered back to Gilbert's shoulder he shyly smiled and excused himself. They left and Gedgie came over to us we were sitting down to watch the late news. “Mistress can Gedgie speak to you?” Elizabeth nodded and picked the gremlin up putting her in her lap.”You had something you wanted to talk about Gedgie?” Gedgie nodded and started to twitch a little. Finally she started pleading to stay with us. I hadn’t really thought about it but Gedgie had been really helpful, she could do the laundry, she could do dishes and made herself useful in any number of small tasks. Elizabeth looked to me for an answer.

“What I didn’t collar her, she’s all your responsibility.” Elizabeth grimaced then sat for a few minutes thinking.”If you want to stay, will you do like the porn pixie did and bind yourself by contract?” Gedgie nodded, she was excited. I went and got the paper this time and we went through the same little ritual we’d used just a few minutes before. With her binding herself to our household there was no further need for a collar, Elizabeth took it off of her, and put it back in her pocket dimension. Gedgie sat in Elizabeth’s lap and watched the news with us, I’d been really astounded to learn how really efficient gremlins could be when they weren’t committing mischief.

We went to bed after the news, Gedgie crawled up in the overstuffed easy chair and went to sleep. The next morning when we got up Gedgie had already made us breakfast, she had been very careful with the stove and we had eggs,bacon and toast for the start of our day. Gedgie asked about the coffee maker, she’d never watched how we used it and wanted to learn how to use it. I told her we would show her how to use it, Elizabeth asked her to make a list of things she thought she could do and we would see if we could could train her to do those things.

Today we would go and investigate what had happened to Abners caravan’s we drove for half an hour an pulled up in an industrial area. I pulled out my medallion and it immediately started to glow. Elizabeth cast her eldritch eye spell, she pulled out the crystal ball and I waited for the results, she said she could see the after images of the creatures that had attacked and killed the gnome driver of the cart. Six goblins she shuddered with disgust. Goblins were a real pain in the ass, they were sneaky as hell and usually armed to the teeth. “It was Big Tooth and his boys, looks like they jumped the gnome when he came across from the other side of the veil.” I had had a couple run ins with Big Tooth he was one of the local goblin gang leaders, he usually hung out around the stampede grounds running scams on unwary humans, he loved scalping tickets to humans at rates off the scale.

That really didn’t make much sense Big Tooth wasn’t into doing this much work, it didn’t add up, I sat back in the seat and tried to figure out what would motivate the goblin to do that much work. “What about if someone hired him to do it?” I turned and stared at my wife.”Didn’t Abner say Grimjaw Plushbottom had contracted him to do some work for him?” Elizabeth nodded. “Now how about if just perchance you contacted the local guy who made all of the magical appliances around here, then ordered some stuff that you knew he would need to get supplies for, following this idea you decide you want to cut out the middle man and just take all of those expensive crystals and Mithril gears he uses in building his appliances.”

I put in a call to Carlo’s place and asked for Katie Quickfinger, five minutes later the little cheerful voice of the female halfling came on the line.”Katie here it’s your dime.” I explained my suspicions to Katie, and asked if she could use her special skills to go and poke around Big Tooth and Grimjaw Plushbottom, I was looking for any sort of recent activity the two might have had together. I then called Abner and told him to call and tell Grimjaw Plushbottom he was expecting another shipment tonight and would be able to get his washer to him the day after tomorrow. Those parts of the plan in motion I asked Elizabeth to cast a gate we were going to visit Gnomeglen the town right across the veil.

We appeared in the street of Gnomeglen, a bunch of curious gnomes stared at us as we headed towards the town center. A huge Hobgoblin came out of the pub and stared at Elizabeth and I, something about his ugly face looked familiar I took Elizabeth by the arm. Hunters on this side of the veil, were just another target to be hunted down.”Oi you human! You think I don’t know who you are?!” I just kept going I could hear him chugging along after us, I kept trying to remember where I’d seen his gruesome face and it finally came to me, he had been involved in a heist over on the mortal side of the veil about three years before I told Elizabeth who the Hobgoblin was and she nodded, suddenly I was stopped dead in my tracks as the big hand grabbed me by the back of my neck.

I was pulled back and over on to my back the big hobgoblin was standing over me, cracking his knuckles.”Remember what I said I was gonna do to you if I ever saw your ugly face over here on my side of the veil?!” I looked on as he got ready to beat the stuffing out of me. I heard words dropping from my wifes lips, he looked up just in time to get a wand jammed under his chin.”You so much as breath hard wrong and I will blow your head off with this firebolt wand, now help my husband to get to his feet!” My wife moved to the side of the hobgoblin never letting up the pressure under his chin on the wand. My wife can be very nasty when someone threatens the people she loves.”Now I am only going to tell you this once, you bother either of us again and I will personally see to it my shadow hound comes to visit you,understand,nod your head if you understand?”

The hobgoblins eyes got real big, he swallowed and nodded his fat head. I dusted myself off and backed away from him slowly. “You clear Arthur?” I told her I was clear she eased up on the wand but kept it pointed at the unfriendly hobgoblin until we reached the end of the street. She let out a sigh of relief, and put the wand in her sash. “Do you always make such polite friends?” I started laughing a pair of Sylphs stopped to stare at me, then they started laughing to. I didn’t know what was that funny then I noticed we had started to acquire a bunch of onlookers following us. I stopped and asked where I could find a dwarf, one of the Sylphs said she could guide us to a dwarf, Elizabeth and I followed the Sylph to the battered door of a ramshackle house.

“He lives here.” I noticed the Sylph holding out her hand. I had forgotten fey usually wanted payment for helping someone, Elizabeth reached into her pocket dimension and pulled out a bag of jelly beans, the Sylphs eyes lit up. Elizabeth handed her the bag and we knocked on the door. The Sylph quickly retreated with her prize. It took almost ten minutes of solid pounding to finally get a response.”Who ever be at me door better be here to tell me I’m rich, or else!” Bradoc Copperbeard kicked his door open and glared at us stark naked.”Well you done woke me and me gal up, spit it out before I make your squirrely face start spitting teeth!

I explained the deal I was willing to make with him, if he could drive a cart across the veil for me I’d make sure he got paid well for his trouble and the best part was he’d get to kick some goblin heads in while he was about it. His bright brick red eyebrows wagged up and down I heard a female voice from inside calling to him, he nodded and held up a finger.”I’ll be back in a minute.” He went back inside his house and I heard him speaking, the female voice got louder and louder until she was shrieking, I saw Bradoc get rolled out his door and a female dwarf in a bed sheet glared at Elizabeth and I with hard blue eyes. “My near worthless husband says you come to our door offering us a chance to stomp some goblin heads!” I nodded as Bradoc picked himself up off the ground in front of his door.

“Anywhere he goes I go understand, so as I understand it you need a driver to drive a cart across the veil later today, me and his nibs can do that, me names Olga Copperbeard we got us a deal?” I nodded and she spat in her hand and held it out, I repeated the same gesture and shook hands with her, it was disgusting but you followed custom I did the same with Bradoc and we set up finding a cart to use he borrowed one from his neighbor and we were ready. Elizabeth and I stepped back through her gate spell and I drove us back to the office. It was lunch time by the time I finished doing the bills and paperwork for mom Abner Cradik came over to the office and we filled him in on what we had planned to do. Katie Quickfinger showed up about a half hour later and confirmed Grimjaw Plushbottom had showed up and spoken to Big Tooth earlier in the day.

Abner looked real pissed off, but we had plans to get his stuff back, we all headed out in my car I pulled up a block from the location and we went on foot from there. We climbed a factory building and got into position to watch the area where the dwarves were going to come across with the cart. Ten minutes later I spotted the goblins setting up to attack the cart. We waited for the moon to rise and the shimmer of a gate appeared, the cart cleared the gate and all hell broke loose down there you could hear dwarf battle shouts and goblins started trying to run from the fierce enemies whose hatred made them chase the goblins down by the time the rest of us got to them the dwarves had beaten the goblins into unconsciousness, it looked like Big Tooth wouldn’t have much claim on that name anymore Olga had knocked it out when she ax handled his face. I tied the goblins up then waited until they regained their senses. Big Tooth spat blood, and glared up at me standing over him. Olga and Bradoc had uncovered a huge cauldron in the back of the cart and were setting it up, Big Tooth looked at what the dwarves were doing then growled at me like he was innocent of anything. I crouched down and told him if he didn’t tell me where the crates of Abner's stuff were, I was going to let the dwarves have them a goblin boil.

Big Tooth’s face got pretty pale he turned his head and Olga started stropping a huge butcher knife she’d pulled out of the cart. I saw a puddle form under him. He began babbling everything after that he told us exactly where all the stuff had been stored I thanked Olga and Bradoc for all there help and Abner told them he would pay them handsomely for assisting us in that business. I helped Bradoc and Olga drag the tied up goblins to the cart and they took them back across the veil. I told them they could be released tomorrow after we dealt with Grimjaw Plushbottom. Legally I couldn’t do anything to him but I could report him to the local fey merchants association, most of those businessmen and women knew things and Grimjaw Plushbottom had stolen from one of their own, theft in the fey world was dealt with in only one way, you stole at your own peril from others of your own kind.

Brant Featherwick smiled when I told him exactly what Grimjaw Plushbottom had done the fairy snapped his fingers and twenty shadow clad elven assassins appeared, the only thing visible was their dark purple eyes, their leader stepped forward and Brant whispered his instructions to him, they melted into the night I actually felt sorry for the Ogre, his own greed had turned on him in this case. Brant looked at me, and told me I owed him a favor for taking care of the garbage disposal for me. I knew I would when I’d come here, I opened the case I’d brought with me and his eyes went wide when I pulled out the golden cloth, the thing was of the finest elven silk it was a nobles robe his mouth began to water, his eyes never left the cloth.”Would you take this in lue of the favor Mr Featherwick?”

I could see him debating it with himself until I opened it and held it up the falcon crest on it made him inhale sharply.”Yes yes all right give it to me!” I gave him the robe, he looked like he had just won the lottery. I left his place and headed home. Life slowed down over the next couple of weeks Gilbert was coming along pretty well, I decided to go and visit him one morning Carlo’s place was a great little apartment building, I stopped in at his place on my way upstairs and said hi, he was in the middle of doing some aerobic exercises I started laughing at him when I saw the gear he was wearing when he answered the door. “What are you laughing about?” I had to wait till I stopped before I tried to say anything.


End file.
